Manufacturing Bases News

United Arab Emirates' ADNOC Logistics & Services (ADNOC L&S) has expanded its fleet with the deployment of five new-build Very Large Gas Carriers (VLGC), state news agency WAM reported on Thursday.The carriers of the shipping and maritime logistics arm of state oil giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company each have a capacity of 86,000 cubic metres. The carriers were built at Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, China, and will be owned and operated by AW Shipping, an ADNOC L&S joint venture with Wanhua Chemical Group (Wanhua), WAM added.

MHI Vestas Offshore Wind, a  joint venture of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Vestas Wind Systems, signed a conditional contract  with CS Wind/Chin Fong the local manufacture of towers, as wind industry veteran takes the reins at newly formed entity in Taipei.MHI Vestas is firming up its localisation plans in Taiwan as the company held a signing ceremony today for the manufacture of wind turbine towers in Taichung Harbour.“Our activities this week underscore our strong commitment to the Taiwan offshore wind market and the buildup of a local supply chain,” said Lars Bondo Krogsgaard, MHI Vestas Co-CEO.“The localisation agreement signed yesterday with CIP…

COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry Co is planning to cut the number of shipyards that are able to manufacture offshore engineering products from five to two by 2020, China Daily reported. China's third largest shipbuilder by output makes this move as the company's latest effort to cut overcapacity, since the global market is unlikely to see a notable upturn anytime soon. Under the plan, its shipyards in Nantong, Zhoushan and Dongguan will be shut down. The company will keep manufacturing bases in Qidong and Dalian as they are capable of producing high-end offshore engineering products such as polar ships, oil drilling platforms and cattle carriers. A few months ago, China Cosco Shipping Group has integrated all of its shipbuilding assets into one unit – Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (CSHI).

Innovation, superior technology and competitiveness are the characteristics that have brought the Finnish maritime industry world repute. Its well-knit maritime cluster responsible for achieving a high level of production has propelled it into prominence in the global market. Extreme conditions during winter have set technological and quality demands on Finnish shipping which, in turn has contributed towards the emergence of a competitive maritime industry in Finland. The Finnish Maritime and Offshore Cluster (incl. Marine industries, shipping and port operations in private and public sectors) is one of the central industries in the Finnish technology industries.

UTi Worldwide Inc., a global supply chain services and solutions company, together with its client, Ansell Limited, named Safmarine its "Partner of the Year" for 2013-2014 during their annual Ocean carrier performance review meeting in July. The award recognizes the strength of Safmarine’s relationship with UTi Worldwide and Ansell Limited. UTi and Ansell jointly selected Safmarine as a global ocean partner as part of their Strategic Ocean freight Partnership program. Ansell’s relationship with UTi now enters its 10th year. "Safmarine proved to be our most supportive ocean carrier, in terms of their understanding of what we need in a logistics partnership. Safmarine has consistently delivered reliable service," said Andrew Gillespie, Ansell's director of global logistics.

The SINOPACIFIC Shipbuilding Group signed a newbuilding contract of 4 SPP35 platform supply vessels (PSV) and a Letter of Intention of 2 large SPP50 PSVs with SLOK Nigeria Ltd. The six vessels are scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2014. This marks the first time that independently designed offshore supply vessel (OSV) products of SINOPACIFIC direct selling to the African market, signifying the growing maturity and acceptance of the SP brand within the market. Over the past two years, SINOPACIFIC has successfully sold 20 similar vessels. Reportedly, the two newly contracted types will be built at SINOPACIFIC’s Dayang Shipyard. “Dayang has been focusing on efficiently building bulk carriers.

The Carrier Car industry has emerged from the global recession with what looks like limited damage compared with the head-on collision others experienced. Drewry believes that this sector, with its small orderbook, is better positioned than most others in the shipping industry, who suffer from large newbuilding orderbooks, to weather a double-dip recession. The downturn hurt car-carrying vessels, with capacity utilisation falling significantly. Operators are now less likely to charter tonnage for long periods, instead placing an emphasis on full employment of owned tonnage. With limited numbers of newbuild vessels coming into service, increased demand is easier to meet and an excess of new capacity is not going to blight operators, if the economy retrenches.